My caboodle - my love

The most desired Christmas gift when I was 11 was a Caboodle. Part tackle box, part makeup carry-all, I was desperate to get one. This is the exact model that I had. I used it every day for like four years and it held all my treasures - LipSmackers, Wet and Wild mascara, Love's Baby Soft "perfume", a variety of scrunchies and plastic slides we stuck one corner of our t-shirts into. It was a box of girliness. As a kid I was always really heavy and I think I loved the Caboodle because makeup fit everyone and it didn't make me feel overweight or different. It depicts middle class, aspirational girlhood and I drug it to every slumber party I attended.

I am so excited about starting the Young Women’s Leadership Program this semester! This is my second year working in Thomas Harrison and with Big Brothers Big Sisters. I’ve bee working with camps and afterschool programs for girls for almost 10 years. I am really interested in ways girls use technology and also hope programs I am part of empower young women to love themselves, be kind to others and do good work in the world.

I have been a professor at James Madison University and I teach classes in writing, feminism and rhetoric and graduate studies. When I’m not teaching, I like traveling, taking photos and hanging out with my family and my three cats Gidget, Cupcake and Maggie.